Magic Potion
by Key the Metal Idol
Summary: Season 3 AU - Jack is given an experimental injection instead of a tranquilizer in the Hydra. The effects are unpredictable.


**A/N:** I wrote this as a Halloween story, but I don't think it turned out too scary.

* * *

"...shouldn't be reacting like this."

A woman's voice woke him. Jack could hear them talking, but he was groggy and everything hurt. What the hell was going on?

"I'm sorry, Ben. I got the wrong bottle, one of the Dharma experimentals was mixed in with the normal tranquilizers."

"Which bottle, Tom."

Jack recognized the voice of 'Henry Gale', but he'd never heard him this upset before. Tom must have been the man with the fake beard, but who was the woman? He didn't think there was anything familiar about her.

"Well..."

"Which. Bottle."

"Here, I dug it out for you."

Jack managed to pry open an eyelid to see a glass bottle passed over to Ben(?) to be inspected. Jack watched as his face drained of color.

"Do you know what you've done?" His quivering voice sent chills up Jack's spine.

"I just handed it over to Jules like I always do! I'm not a doctor, Ben."

"Yes, Juliet," Ben turned to her with a black expression, "You've made it quite clear how much you dislike me, but this? If you wanted to kill me you should have just done it, instead of subjecting him to this."

"I had two other people to worry about, and I forgot to check, okay? Even doctors aren't perfect, Ben. What does it do, anyway?"

"That's just it you see—no one knows. None of the animals they tested it on ever survived. When I worked for Dharma I had the dubious distinction of disposing of the bodies...what was left of them."

"Not much different than your usual, then," Juliet sounded bitter.

"Hilarious, Juliet. I'm sure our friend Jack just can't wait to laugh," they all turned to look at him, only Ben seemed unsurprised to see him awake. "I'd wondered how to break the bad news to you, but it seems I won't have to."

"I don't understand. What's happening to me?" Every cell in Jack's body felt like it was burning.

"As I think you've heard, you were injected with something you shouldn't have been. It was never tested on humans, so I can't tell you what the exact reactions might be." Cool blue eyes regarded him with something like sympathy, "The animals all had warped bones, sometimes organs expelled from their bodies, and every last one died in agony. We don't know how any painkillers we might give you would react to what's in your system, so I'm afraid you're in for a rough time of it, Jack."

"I'm going to die then?"

"I don't see how you could live, but stranger things have happened," Ben looked away, he couldn't even convince himself. He took a breath looked at Tom, "Get Austin and Ford—they should still be unconscious if you gave them the _correct_ injections. Keep them out and dump them in the jungle about a mile from the Oceanic camp. Keeping them here is a waste of resources."

"Right. Should I keep my walkie on?" Tom looked at Ben hopefully.

"Don't bother, Tom. I have nothing to say to you." The way he said it implied Ben actually had nothing _pleasant_ to say, and Tom slunk out of the room like a kicked puppy.

Jack thought about stories of people being in so much pain that they pass out, but whatever was happening to his body wouldn't allow him that. Jack tried to concentrate on the straps holding him to the gurney, and the arm with the IV in it, but distraction wasn't working. His bones popped and creaked and Jack had visions of sneaking out to the television when he was a kid and watching _An American Werewolf in London_. Even while it hurt, there was a layer of wrongness under the pain, like his skin was getting tighter and going to compress everything inside of him. It was getting hard to see, the pain making the world white behind his eyelids. Jack wondered how long he would still be able to hear, or even care that he could.

"I am fully capable of changing an IV, Juliet. Go home."

"I just wanted to help."

"I'm sure. If your luck holds out maybe when you get back we'll both be dead. Go."

Jack focused on Ben's voice and his vision cleared momentarily as Ben smiled coldly at Juliet. She frowned at him for a second. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't hoping Ben was going to die—it just wasn't supposed to happen this way. Juliet gave a tired sigh as she left, daring to slam the door behind her on the way out.

Jack tried to ask questions while he could still think, "What does that mean? Why did you let Kate and Sawyer go? Why—" His stomach clenched hard, derailing him as he tried to curl into a ball. Jack's clothes were soaked through, and his sweat was making everything slick, bruises showed near the restraints as proof of his struggle against them.

"Can you see, Jack?"

Jack gasped as he felt cold hands on his face, and managed to ease his eyes open a sliver, "I...barely."

"Stay with me a minute, and I might tell you what you want to know," Ben drew his hands back, then grabbed a file folder sitting on a table not too far away. "Do you know what this is?" He paused more for effect than because he expected Jack to respond. "My medical records, including an x-ray taken not all that long ago," Ben held it up to the light. "Even if you can you see it, I don't know if you're in any shape to read it."

"Shadow on...the...L4?" Jack gasped for breath, "T-tumor."

Ben nodded, "I needed you here to help me, Jack. Your friends were supposed to keep you in line."

"Didn't...kill them," Jack's breathing grew more labored and his eyes closed for maybe the last time.

"If we were what you thought we were, Jack, I would be disappointed in myself," Ben sat the file back down and rolled a chair over to sit on.

"Why...are you...still here?" It was barely a whisper, and for a second Jack didn't think he'd been heard, but he felt the weight of Ben's eyes on him.

"Does anyone really want to die alone? I hope that someone would give me the same courtesy," Ben's doubt carried through his tone.

Jack was completely incoherent after that, a combination of screaming and delirium that nearly sent Ben running more than once. The spectacle of a real life shapeshifter kept him glued white-knuckled to his chair, as bones and sinew rearranged themselves. Some time around midnight, Jack finally lost consciousness.

At first Ben thought he had died, but as he got up from his seat to get closer he could still see the nearly imperceptible rise and fall of Jack's breathing. Though he doubted it would make any difference, Ben changed the saline drip to keep him hydrated. Only, _him_ wasn't entirely accurate anymore. Ben looked over the label of the bottle Tom had given him—Project: Pygmalion.

"Pretentious idiots," Ben murmured to himself. Dharma could never leave well enough alone. But there was a kernel of hope in him now. It might not be impossible for him—for_ her_—to survive. Maybe a human subject made the difference.

Mercifully, Jack didn't wake for the rest of the transformation. Ben watched, eyes glowing with childish fascination at the smaller, more delicate changes. The sharpness of the cheeks and collarbones, lips subtly softer, peach fuzz on the face instead of stubble, and hips that curved. He'd managed to lose track of time completely, and as Jack began to stir Ben was surprised to see it was nearly eight o'clock.

"You're still alive, Jack. Can you hear me?" Ben unfastened the restraints holding her to the bed.

"I...what?" Jack's voice worked, but the timbre was all wrong. "I feel weird," she raised a hand and pressed it to her throat, quickly snapping it up in front of her eyes after realizing it looked much too small. "This isn't possible. I'm..."

"A woman? Apparently it _is_ possible. Would you like a mirror?" Not waiting for an answer Ben got up to retrieve one from a cabinet, while Jack slowly sat up.

Jack's clothes were much too big for her now, if she stood up her pants would have fallen off. Ben handed over the mirror and Jack used it to look herself over with disdain.

"You're lovely. What's the matter, you're not your type?"

"I look like my mother, if she was a twenty years younger aerobics instructor." Jack frowned at her reflection, "I wonder if something's wrong with my liver, I'm jaundiced."

"If there is a problem it will probably heal, everything does here."

"Except your tumor," Jack remembered.

Ben sighed, "Except that."

Jack was understandably tired and sore, but she put aside the strangeness of everything and took a good look at Ben. He still had cuts from what Sayid had done, but what drew Jack's attention the most were the weary bloodshot eyes behind his glasses.

"You really stayed through the whole thing."

Ben blinked at her, "I keep my promises, Jack."

Jack reached out to grab Ben's arm, he shot her a strange look but allowed it. She started to trace down his arm, approximating the length of an incision.

"I could try to do the surgery, but with my hands feeling so...off, I don't know how it will turn out. I might kill you," Jack squirmed in place. She felt like she was wearing an ill-fitting suit that would never come off.

"I'd take 'might' be killed over the alternative," Ben watched her shift awkwardly on the bed. It was time to take advantage of the situation, before Jack started thinking of what happened after surgery. "You'll have to stay with us now. Your people back at camp, the people you knew or worked with off-Island, even your own mother—resemblance or not—wouldn't believe you are who you are."

"But...they're depending on me."

"They were depending on _him_, Jack, and _he's_ gone. You're one of us now, and I take care of what's mine," Ben had his hand holding her arm now, and Jack honestly couldn't remember when situation reversed itself.

Their eyes locked and Jack was mesmerized by the avarice in Ben's, but she managed a quiet, "Okay." She felt a little nauseous as he beamed at her, but there wasn't an alternative, not anymore. Besides, didn't she owe him for staying? Jack stomped down a dissenting voice that tried to remind her that if he hadn't taken the three of them in the first place none of this would have happened.

Ben assured Jack she wouldn't regret this, "I heard you arguing enough times with John to know you're not good with blind faith. I can show you things you'll have to believe, Jack."

Jack looked over at the reflection that peered back at her from the mirror—that was what she was afraid of.


End file.
